Obama and JFK: Inaugural Address

Many people have been rather perplexed over many years by my strong affinity for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. They tend to look at my collection of JFK books and shake their heads and shrug their shoulders in a way that does not suggest in any manner that they understood what the collection is all about. Not that it bothers me in the least bit.

One of the truths about my apparent obsessive-compulsive behaviour towards the various written studies of JFK is rooted in his love of the English language and his awareness of the power of the spoken and written word.

In one of the seminal books on JFK entitled Kennedy, written posthumously by Theodore Sorensen JFK's Personal Assistant and speechwriter extraordinaire, Sorensen had a section that lent a glimpse of the process in which JFK's Presidential Inaugural Address was crafted. It also revealed the thought process that JFK and Sorensen went through in preparing one of the most important speeches an American President can make in his political career. Here's a swatch of Sorensen:

.
He (JFK) had first mentioned it (drafting the Inaugural Address) to me in November (1960). He wanted suggestions from everyone. He wanted it short. He wanted it focused on foreign policy. He did not want it to sound partisan, pessimistic or critical of his predecessor. He wanted neither the customary cold war rhetoric about the Communist menace or weasel words that Kruschev (the Soviet leader at the time) might misinterpret. And he wanted it to set a tone for the era about to begin.
.
He asked me to read all the past Inaugural Addresses (which I discovered to be a largely undistinguished lot, with some of the best eloquence emanating from some of our worst Presidents). He asked me to study the scret of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (my conclusion, which his Inaugural Address applied, was that Lincoln never used a two- or three-syllable word where a one-syllable word would do).
.......

He was dissatisfied with each attempt to outline domestic goals. It sounded partisan, he said, divisive, too much like the campaign. Finally, he said, "Let's drop the domestic stuff altogether. It's too long anyway." He wanted it to be the shortest in the twentieth century, he said. "It's more effective that way and I don't want people to think I'm a windbag." He couldn't beat FDR's abbreviated wartime remarks in 1944, I said- and he settled for the shortest (less than nineteen hundred words) since 1905.
........

.
The next morning, on the patio in sport clothes, he reworked it further. "Let's eliminate all the 'I's," he said. "just say what 'we' will do. You'll have to leave it in about the oath and responsbility, but let's cut everywhere else." The ending, he said, "sounds an awful lot like the ending of the Massachussetts legislature speech, but I guess it's OK." He worked and reworked the "ask not" sentence, with the three campaign speeches containing the same phrase spread out on a low glass table beside him.

The power of JFK's Inaugural Address has lasted for nearly half a century. As recently as 2004, Thurston Clarke wrote an entire book entitled Ask Not, an excellent and well-written work, on the makings of the Inaugural Address. Clarke's thesis was to debunk the myth that JFK did not author the Inaugural Address and, that it was actually written by Sorensen in toto. Clarke establishes that JFK's imprimatur was stamped fully and indelibly on the Inaugural Address.
.
Come January 20, the date which is fixed for US Presidential Inaugurations, Obama's Inaugural Address will be delivered.

From the standpoint of oratory, there hasn't been a US President since JFK, quite like President-elect Obama, who can deliver soaring words without sounding silly. Ronald Reagan had a good sonoric voice that he used to good effect with large doses of Hollywood-style one-liner quips. But no one has matched JFK in speech or word, in my humble estimation. Until, Obama.

My only concern is that given the domestic economic maelstrom that now dogs the US, Obama will have to deal with the nuts and bolts issues. But, I suspect, Obama and his speechwriters will be smarter than that. During the best of times or the worst of times, people want to hear soothing words even if they are largely rhetorical.

That is why, in the Malaysian context, Raja Nazrin's speeches almost always bring cheer and inspiration and positive goodwill to the entire spectrum of the Malaysian community each and every time. Although he avoids rhetoric and couches his speech with great intellect and wisdom, Raja Nazrin touches the correct spot every time. He is a savvy public figure in Malaysia with a good reading of the true nature, pulse and aspirations of Malaysians.

.
Which leaves us with the anticipation of Obama's forthcoming Inaugural Address. It is something to look forward to. Given his now-famous Acceptance Speech in Chicago, upon being confirmed as President-elect, Obama's Inaugural Address could turn out to be one to remember for the ages to come...at least, I hope so.
___________________

By way of a postscript, I wish to add an image of a painting of President-elect Obama in the famous Kennedy pose above. It's an image done amazingly well by Dan Lacey the Artist (from whose blog I borrowed the image of the JFK painting).

.
I want to thank Dan for sharing this Obama-in-Kennedy-repose image with me and, I want to suggest that you click here to visit his blog entitled, Dan Lacey, Painter of Pancakes to savour more of his great works of contemporary art.